Dear Woman,

I know you are tired

Of picking up shit, sitting in shit, putting up with shit

Swallowing shit and showing up, again and again.

Gaslighted into false spaces of rest, into presenting as if it’s all okay.

I know that you have run this marathon far past your finish line

Panting through these last 100 miles or so with eyes searching

For a damned cowbell and pool of water already.

And there have been unexpected victory laps and wardrobe changes no doubt.

Rewarding your persistence with synchronicitoes, gentle offerings to lure you further along.

Past that expected self, far past some of the old shit.

Integrated, yet insiduously marketed to and preyed upon to hold you in a dizzying dance of reevaluating.

In easily shared checklists, workshops, and tests.

Keep going, the spirits whisper, the spirits warn.

Marco, I call out in curious exhaustion

Hear echoes of Polo sing out from unexplored caverns within

Ring out from unknown spaces ahead

And so I keep running, holding, hoping, pushing, searching

For the next space that will hold me.